


Look Up

by gaysquared



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: CSA, Canon Compliant, Derek Morgan's past, Gen, Nothing explicit, Reflection, implied molestation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 06:52:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5902570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaysquared/pseuds/gaysquared
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little reflection of Derek Morgan's childhood trauma. Nothing explicit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look Up

**Author's Note:**

> Ya, so... This is dark. And kind of just, random. And really different from what I usually write. Nothing Explicit, like I said, more of the events leading up to the trauma.

Look up to the sky. 

He'd never been to a lake before. The closest thing he'd ever seen to a lake before this had been the large puddle that formed in the dying, mushy grass of his small backyard when the hose he and his friends had been playing with had been left on too long during the summer. That, or the pool at the youth center, which wasn't very big anyways, but had seemed an ocean to him the first time he saw it. It was a somewhat similar thing to what he saw when he looked out at the lake, something more wild and natural and deafeningly overpowering than he had ever seen. 

Look up to the sky. 

His momma said it was good for him to have a father figure in his life, especially one that would teach him how to grow up like a black man should, good to get out and have some fun. And Derek knew it was true, knew she was right, because his momma was always right. And he had never seen a lake before. Not in person, not like this. 

Carl was a nice man, always smiled at him, encouraged him, pushed him to do better. There had been a spark of triumph in Derek's heart when he had been asked up to the lake house instead of one of the other boys. Carl liked him better than them, and he liked to tell Derek, too. 

"So special, Derek. You a special kid. Don' forget that."

Derek didn't know what to say when he realized that in his excitement he had forgotten his swim trunks for the lake, but Carl just smiled and said, "Is okay, kid, you can jus' swim naked. There no one around but me an' you fo' miles."

He was hesitant for a moment, but it wasn't like Carl hadn't seen him naked before. There were locker rooms at the youth center, after all, and it wasn't odd for Carl to change with the boys after their football practices. Carl slips in to the lake after him, although he has his swim trunks on. They swim for a time that slips between Derek's fingers like sand, spiraling down in the way he floats on the water. They splash around at first before Derek breathes into his decent, spreading his arms wide in something like a prayer. When they get out he's shivering and Carl says he has something to warm Derek up back at the house, and Derek silently hopes it has something to do with playing football. He likes it when Carl teaches him new things about football. 

It's not football (but you know that).

**Author's Note:**

> This was more just for me, in all honesty. I think making a black male character that has a very assertive masculinity be a CSA survivor was an amazing thing for the show to do. I really connected with the idea that anybody can be a survivor, and it doesn't make you any weaker, or any less of who you are. Derek Morgan is a huge inspiration to me, and I just needed to write this.


End file.
